Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger

by Roberts, Liz

  It was morning. Tom bolted awake, taking in his surroundings. He’d done it. He’d broken out. He heard the snoring and saw the boy, that’s right, he was taking him with. He spent every very minute wondering if it was a good or bad choice. Shaking the kid awake he said. “Hey we need to get going in case they try and track us.” Mumbling the boy waved him off. “Let’s go or were dead when they find us.” That got the kid moving a bit more. After a quick pop tart and some water they went back to the trek. Tom had no idea how far they walked last night, it was a good 3 or 4 hours’ worth of hoofing it. Hopefully there was some good distance. It was later in the day than he’d like, so he wanted to try and make up some time. Two hours had passed in silence before the boy stated he was hungry again. “Let’s walk one more mile.” Tom said.

  “How do you know how far we are going?”

  “I’m judging the distance on the amount of time we walk. Not super accurate but it’s a decent base to start from.” Tom pulled out some beef jerky and they split it and continued to walk with the noon sun high overhead. They were lost, but hadn’t seen a zombie since the night before and hadn’t heard anything from the hell hole yet. Tom knew it was too soon to start celebrating, but he couldn’t help but smile when he thought about those fuckers faces when they realized he’d snuck out. He knew the general direction they were heading, he knew maybe the next day they would come across something he might recognize, or at least he’d hoped so. The boy was walking behind him trying to keep up. He knew he was tired, but they needed to gain ground, put some miles between them and the bad guys. An hour or two later and the kid was dragging again, he had to do something to keep him going.

  “So what’s your name?”

  “Brian.” The boy replied.

  “How old are you?”

  “13.”

  “Well for 13 you know how to handle yourself pretty well.” They continued chatting while walking, in fact Tom noticed the kid perked up and seemed to push harder. The day was getting on, Tom had hoped to eventually come across a park, or golf course, even a path. They’d walked all day in these woods, he did his best to keep the sun on his shoulders, and he feared they had somehow got turned around or something. But that couldn’t be.

  “How much farther is it?” Brian started the whine. Tom quickly grabbed him a chocolate bar and broke it in half to help tide them over.

  “We’ll have to bed down again tonight, and maybe by tomorrow night we’ll be there.” Tom replied. He didn’t like sleeping outside, too worried that something would creep up on him. Silence again.

  Dusk was setting upon them, Tom was actually starting to fret, and it had been hours since they’d seen there last zombie and a day plus since the last human, anxiety was beginning to take hold, what if no one was left? What if they had crossed through some other dimension? Tom shook his head, had to stay focused he repeated to himself. His mind was wandering way off track. That’s when he heard the splashing. He quickly halted and put his arm out to stop Brian. “Ssshhhh!” He said. They both listened, another faint splash. There was water nearby, but what was causing the splashes. The crept forward, as best as you could in the forest on a bed of old dry leaves that had nowhere else to go. They could see the trees getting less dense and the start of a clearing ahead. Still hiding they saw a pond or lagoon depending on where you were from. Ducks were splashing, flying and sailing into the water. The water looked so inviting, Tom didn’t hesitate, he started stripping down to his boxers and jumped in followed closely by Brian. They laughed and enjoyed the cold soak in the water. It was fabulous, neither could remember the last time they’d had a bath of any kind. You usually just kind of sponged yourself clean in the hell hole, if you would lucky enough to have some spare water.

  “Come on, we can start a fire for a little bit to warm up and dry off, but we can’t let it burn too long.” Tom said while getting out of the water. He was banking on being deep enough in the woods that if there was a road near they wouldn’t see the light from the fire, and that the sky was dark enough not to see the smoke. How he’d love to catch a fish and cook it. But they had no way to do this and he didn’t want to waste time. He just wanted to eat something and get to sleep so they could rise with the sun. He was still mad that they had slept so long this morning. They passed some cookies and beef jerky between each other, while they dried from the fire.

  “So what’s this place like that were going to?” Brian asked with his mouth full.

  “Well it’s sort of like that other place.” Tom said pointing over his should, and Brian stopped chewing abruptly. “People just trying to survive. We have managed to grow our own food, we go out for supplies, we’ve built things, but we don’t kidnap people, most find their way to us, or we manage to find people and rescue them. And if you don’t like it, you do have the choice to leave. Like me.”

  “Why would you leave? That place sounds wonderful.”

  “I had issues.”

  “What kind?”

  “Can we not talk anymore for tonight?” Brian just stared. “I’m tired and we have to start really early.”

  “Yeah sure.” Tom stomped out the fire putting them in pitch darkness, Tom’s night vision was ruined, he was apprehensive to sleep, but had his machete ready in his hand in case. He decided to keep watch for a bit, or just stay awake since he was too wound up to sleep. He lay still with his eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the night. He heard crickets, an owl, four legged creatures scampering in the woods. He was starting to drift off when everything went quiet. He sat up and tried to peer through the darkness. A stick snapped and echoed in the darkness, the noise seemed to ricochet through the night. Tom held his breath just listening. He could hear Brian’s heavy breathing, and the creatures of the night began to make noise again. He lay back down, still trying to reach out with his ears to hear anything, but he could only stay away so long.

  Morning came early, not many people slept, so they mustered early, ate an MRE for breakfast and began their tasks for the day. There was many. They added the 3 hummers in the garage to their list of supplies, they had to check them out, make sure they even ran. I mean they were in mechanic garage for a reason.

  “Ok guys, we each have our tasks, let’s get it done and stay safe.” Casey said and everyone got into their vehicles expect a couple that stayed behind to work on the cars, they’d start later. Oscar had drawn up maps of all the surrounding buildings and what was in them. Each person had a list of what was needed but they all knew if they found any essential extras to grab them as well. They had all agreed to stay away from the housing units, it just seemed too tricky and unsure. Weapons, food, medical equipment, those were the main goals and apparently 3 separate buildings housed all these wonderful gems.

  There was still no sight of any zombies Oscar had pointed out. There were a few miles from a semi populated area and they figured there was bound to be things around here. Setting to their tasks they began to load, Casey and Oscar found the weapons depot, the outer lock had most definitely been tampered with, pry marks were all around it, but there was also a lock on the inside and key code. You needed a gun in this situation. Casey pounded on the door a good number of times. “Is there anyone in there?” He shouted through the door. With his ear pressed he listened to silence for several minutes. Giving Oscar the thumbs up, he stepped away as Oscar raised his gun. Shooting partially from the side and at a downward angle he emptied half a clip before the lock was completely blown out and the door moved.

  “We’re in business.” He said. “You got my six?”

  “All day every day.” Casey replied. With their M4’s raised they entered the building with flash lights on, they discovered power was more sporadic away from home, but it still existed in a few of the buildings. Trying the light switch nothing happened. There lights wavered over and between the shelves, guns, rifles and explosives everywhere. Casey was giddy with excitement but had to keep it all in until they cleared the place. They approached another door labeled autho
rized personnel only. The door was unlocked and pulled open easy. The stench hit the right away.

  “Oh man.” Oscar was trying to scrunch up his nose to avoid the smell. It was dark inside but they knew what lingered.

  “Anyone alive?” Casey said, the room only echoed back moans and faint shuffling. With their weapons raised and lights pointing into the darkness they wait for something to appear. Moans growing louder 3 heads appeared from the darkness. They fired single shots into each head. Still poised and ready another moan, louder this time went through the air, but nothing could be seen yet.

  “Fuck!” Oscar shouted as a hand grabbed his ankle causing him to trip and fall backwards. “Get it off me!” Casey tried to step back to get some room, with no safe shot that wouldn’t take Oscars foot off he quickly punted the side of the head with his steel toed boots. It shook the zombie up enough for Oscar to sit up and end the things miserable life.

  “Damn man that shit was scary.”

  “Right.” Casey breathed the word out heavy. Casey grabbed his radio quickly sent out a message about the firing the others may have heard and a reminder to stay frosty. They finished clearing out the small room which contained pretty much small arms ammo. There was so much of it they didn’t know what to grab first.

  “Those other doors, will they all contain awesome rooms of ammo?” Casey asked Oscar with hope.

  “Yes, and they come equipped with other survival gear. Most of these buildings are set up to be a fall back or strong hold of sorts. Most supplies would last at least for a few days. I say we take everything. We’ll load up one of the cargo trucks. Those suckers can carry up to a couple Tons of weight.” Methodically they opened the other doors containing ammo and a few other essentials, Casey felt like they had hit the mother lode. After securing the outer door then went around to grab one of the M35 cargo trucks Oscar mentioned, it was massive. Its tires alone were like 6ft in radius, the back part was open, but that didn’t matter. After locating the keys, they were in business. Loading could commence. The radios were quiet, the day nice and uneventful, things couldn’t have been better, unless Jill was with him. He was trying not to think about her, it was hard, especially last night trying to sleep when everything was quiet and he was alone with his thoughts. Before he’d often think of his wife and daughter, and torture himself with thoughts of them being alive somewhere but just out of reach, or they were the one of the undead walking around rotting away. Slowly he was learning to let those thoughts go, because he didn’t have a choice really. His life couldn’t be consumed with what if’s anymore, he actually felt like he had something to live for again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! A scream echoed around the base, it stopped Oscar and Casey in their tracks. Suddenly the radios were alive with chatter.

  “We found the soldiers!”

  “Run! Run!”

  “ … . too many of them!” You could hear squealing tires and gunfire.

  “Can you guys make it back to the garage?” Casey and Oscar were on the far side of the base a good mile away from the garage.

  “Negative. Were trapped, hundreds of them are around us.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Trapped in the commissary building, I think Andy and Jane managed to make it to their car. I don’t know about the rest.” William said.

  Andy chirped on the radio. “Lucy and Vic, they’re either dead or wounded.” The radio crackled and silence again. “I saw them go down.”

  “What about the others?”

  “No idea?”

  “Where are you guys now?” Casey asked.

  “Being chased by flesh eaters. Where driving back towards the entrance, maybe we can lose them out in the city somewhere and double back.” Andy sounded controlled, but you could hear Jane was frantic in the background saying their behind us over and over.

  “Oscar what do you think?” They were still untouched, the slime balls didn’t even know they were here. “Should we use grenades? We have plenty.” Casey suggested.

  “My only concern would be accidently blowing the door up or weakening the structure and exposing our people.”

  “We could try and get them to chase us.”

  “Yeah let’s do that, I don’t want to use are newly acquired stock of bullets just yet.” Oscar said.

  “Ok, since this is your place, I’ll drive the decoy car and you get them out?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Casey grabbed 2 grenades from a box before he hoped out to the truck. He race around to the SUV and Oscar climbed in the cargo truck, he radioed to Will and Rob about the attempt to get them out. Casey gunned the engine and took off toward the melee in hopes to save lives. As he came around the slight bend he was confronted with maybe 80 zombies give or take. He went racing towards them, he hoped to kill a couple, but didn’t want to flip either, driving through zombies was not easy. The physic and calculus of it could make someone crazy, you just had to find what you thought to be a good entry point, hands at 10 & 2, and not to let up on the gas, but don’t go too fast. Control. Hitting the gas he careened into the pile, staying close to the building, not intentionally. Running over bodies, blood smearing the windows, hands and faces pummeling the truck he drove straight through. He slowed a bit to make sure the crowd followed and then he took of slowly in hopes to string them along.

  Oscar stood on the roof of the cargo truck with his binocs out. He saw Casey take a healthy chunk of the group and then continue on at parade speed while they caught up with him. Oh he was good. He waited, watching, making sure the bodies on the ground were motionless before he called William and Robert out of the building.

  “You guys can come out, but careful for crawlers.” Oscar told them. He proceeded to try and radio Vic and Lucy, with no answer. Damn. Losing people was no picnic. He Got down and drove the truck slowly over to the commissary.

  “How much more stuff do you have left?” Oscar asked. Bam! And explosion went off in the distant.

  “That was just me guys. I have one more grenade left.” Casey called over the radio. Oscar focused back on the two at hand.

  “Not much, a few more boxes inside, then we can pick up where Rob and Vic left off. We should be able to get this completed.” They quickly brought out the last few food crates and dumped them into the big truck.

  “Where the hell did those things come from?” Oscar asked.

  “No idea. We heard Lucy scream over there.” He pointed a couple of buildings over towards the hospital and the barracks area. “Next thing we knew we were swarmed. I saw one of them grab Lucy and we ducked in here.”

  “You mean you actually had a shot and you just left her?” Oscar was trying to understand what he was hearing exactly.

  “Well …” Will stuttered. “It wasn’t totally like that. There … were things all around … we had to get to safety.”

  “So how far were the zombies from you when she screamed?” Oscar demanded to know.

  “Maybe 50yds.” Rob inserted, getting a death ray look from Will.

  “So your 50yds away.” He gestures. “You see a team member about to get grabbed by a zombie and you don’t think to lend a hand?”

  “We’re not sharp shooters.” Will says. Oscar was trying not to be too angry but it was hard, knowing these 2 knobs stood and watched as one of their own was taken.

  “I’m not saying you have to be sharp shooters, but shooting anything in that situation could have been helpful. Instead you let Lucy die.” He walked into Will and gave him a hard shove. “Way to go jack ass.” He got into the truck with Rob trailing them, they left Will standing there stunned. How was this his fault he wondered, yeah maybe he could have shot some of them before they got her, but then they would have come after them that much faster. There were speeders in that group. Why did he always feel like the loser when everyone else got accolades?

  It poured thunderous rain down on them. Big fat drops, they almost hurt when they hit you. They managed to find a town that had an abandoned, yet still in tack, ACE hardware stor
e. This was going to really set them back. Tom hadn’t banked on bad weather. Maybe this place had a radio and he could call for help. Brian was passed out in the back employee break room, Tom wandered around looking for anything to use as a weapon or something that might help. At least the place was empty. There did seem to be a fair share of zombies around this place, they would have to play it cool, otherwise they’d get trapped here.

  He was looking back out the front window of the store, across the street several buildings were pretty destroyed, a grocery store and hunting and supply store, he bet nothing was left in either. He was tempted to wake Brian and go now, the rain would be good cover, but something happened and either one got injured or sick, there’d be no way to help. He sat down against the wall just staring out at the rain, it was so rhythmic.

  The silence woke Tom, he must have fallen asleep listening to the rain. He woke with a zombie in his face pawing at the glass with his two nubby arms. Who knows how long he’d been asleep for. He stared at the zombie for a few minutes, as if he could suddenly figure it all out. The sun appeared to be peaking out and morning had arrived. He stretched, and tried to work the kinks out of his neck when he noticed a reflection. His attention caught, he squinted, it was a few blocks away, but it didn’t seem random or caused by nature. Two quick glimmers and it disappeared. He knew something was up for sure.

  He woke Brian and they snuck out the back door and down the street. The town was small and they managed to weave their way through unscathed. It was early in the evening when they decide to find a spot to rest, they found a long ago abandoned farm house, abandoned before zombies came to be. The place was dust covered and spider web filled, but it was shelter and the front and back doors locked. They managed to air out the place some and shake out some blankets.

  “I’ve gotta piss.” Brian stated as he went out the back door and went to a nearby grouping of trees. He looked around and hummed to himself. Giving a little shake and a zip, he stepped over a couple of bushes, grabbed a handful of twigs and snapped them in half to lie on their sides.